Ms. Spilman effectively replaces Elisa Steele, who left the company in December after two-plus years following the ouster of her boss, former CEO Carol Bartz. Ms. Steele was hired by Ms. Bartz from B-to-B marketer NetApp. Yahoo exec Penny Baldwin had been running marketing on an interim basis.

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Ms. Spilman ran marketing in the Americas for Yahoo for the last two years. Before that she led global B-to-B marketing efforts at Yahoo and has also worked as CMO at Advertising.com, both pre- and post-acquisition by AOL.

Yahoo has had its difficulties in marketing over the past few years. Its $100-million "It's You" campaign that launched in 2009 under Ms. Steele was widely viewed as a major bust.

In other moves by Mr. Levinsohn, Mickie Rosen was named head of global media and commerce, according to a company memo obtained by Bloomberg News. Sam Shrauger, a former executive at EBay's PayPal unit hired last month to co-run a commerce unit with Ms. Spilman, will leave the company, the memo said.

Levinsohn stepped into the CEO role after Scott Thompson resigned following an inquiry into errors in his academic record. Thompson, whose exit also was part of a board restructuring, had joined the company in January after Ms. Bartz was fired in September. Thompson was formerly president of PayPal.

"I'm fired up and I hope you are too," Levinsohn said in the memo to employees. "I believe in the power of what we're doing."